I was browsing the Sherwood Engineering receiver tests yesterday and noticed new entries for the Yaesu FT-950 and the Elecraft KX-3.I was suprised to see the KX-3 at the top of the heap, beating out both the FT-5000 and the K-3. Although there many other factors that go into a radio that must be considered besides receiver performance, and it's a little small for my taste, it sure is an impressive little box! And the price is right! I can't wait to see the full write-up on what appears to be a promising radio.

G3SJX, who does a lot of detailed reviews for RSGB's RadCom magazine, told me that a number he'd tested had an interesting IMD response. With relatively small inputs, the 3rd order IMD signal popped up a few dB above noise floor, and stayed there as the input level increased until the overload point was reached.

The other year (possibly January 2010), there was quite a bit in RadCom from a pair of VKs who had done a lot of work in this area: again, the IMD performance was totally different to that of an analogue rx. All very interesting.

I have used two sdr rigs and they have the most clean audio I have had yet from a ham rig, not to say all sdr are outstanding in audio clarity just that these two in particular are worthy, clean local oscillators also help. They revealed to me that there are many hams out there with crummy signals full of rf or fming or too much mic gain or whatever. When you compare sdr rigs to analog it may help to be selective of the signals you wish to compare by.

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